looking for info and advice on hip dysplasia

riley x ray.jpg
Hi, this is a x ray of my dog Riley. He is a 20 month old lab-hound mix we rescued last year. We just recently started to notice as he would be running around the dog park he was starting to hop a bit, and last weekend he started limping. We took him to our vet and after a x ray we found he has bad hip dysplasia in his right hip. Our vet is recommending that because the displasia is so advanced that we take him to a specialist & have surgery to remove part of the bone to stop the bone on bone contact that is causing the discomfort. My vet said that since he is so young & healthy he is a perfect candidate for the procedure. I do trust my vet and my wife has already called the specialist, but before he gets the surgery I wanted to post on a forum like this & see if anyone had any other ideas about this. Has anyone dealt with this in a non surgical way? Also if anyone has post surgery advice on how to keep him healthy & active, I would appreciate that as well.

the hopping is a sign of hip dysplasia, and if its in one hip it will be in the other as well largely due to the fact that he is shifting his weight to the good hip putting strain on that, plus hip dy splasia is usually in both hips. The only cure I know of is hip replacement but to try to save the other hip start giving him glucosamine. You can't overdose on it, if you give him more than his body needs he will just pee it out.

After surgery he will need about three months of down time, no running or jumping on furniture if you can't watch him he will need to be crated. After a couple of weeks you start short walks. He needs down time for the hip to heal.

after surgery they will no doubt put him on an anti biotic for infection, if so its imperative that you give him a probiotic daily. He should be on that anyway.

he is your friend and protector, he will love you unconditionally, you owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion

I don't have experience with hip dysplasia, but my dog Benny used to bunny-hop in pain, too, because his hip bones were moved out of alignment in some sort of vehicle strike before I met him. Please see my posts below on how I use New Zealand Green-Lipped Mussel Extract for Benny's bones. It has been a godsend. The doctor said the strike had happened too long ago to treat with surgery, but the NZGLME made Benny completely mobile again. I still give it to him every day. Hope this info might be useful.

I had a Standard Schnauzer who was diagnosed with hip dysplasia around the age of 4 years, otherwise at the time she was in perfect health. My vet at the time was very experienced and I had been using him for decades for my dogs, I trusted his advice. The dysplasia showed on the xray in both hips, one was just a little worse than the other. I always thought it showed in both when dysplasia, but I may be wrong.

He said they could go in and operate, but he did not recommend it, because success in those types of operations is not good, and the dog goes through a lot with the surgery and recovery, and the owner goes through a lot of expense. So, we decided to just let her take the Rimadyl for pain/inflammation, along with supplements like ChondroFlex, or other products with MSM (methyl sulfonyl methane) and Glucosamine Sulfate.

Another reason we didn't do the surgery is because decades ago when we were younger, we had an Alaskan Malamute who had bad back knees. The knees didn't fit into the sockets the way they were supposed to, and it caused him problems climbing hills, etc. We did get surgery for him and it was a long recovery process. We always regretted it, because he still was in pain years after the surgery and we felt that he would have been better off if we just left him alone and gave him something to deal with the pain/discomfort. He was worse after surgery, often crying out if he jumped up on us or something like that. It broke our hearts to see him that way.

This is just my opinion from my experience with dysplasia, of course you'll have to make your own decision. Sorry, I'm not able to give an opinion on your xray, I tried to look in my file for a copy of the one from my dog, but I don't have it. I'm sorry to hear you're having this problem with your Riley, I know you're worried and stressed. Welcome to the forum, please let us know what you decide and how he's doing, thanks.

^ I'm also skeptical of, and uncomfortable with, how quickly doctors leap to surgery in general, whether for pets or people.

I think they're just trained to recommend things like surgery and prescription drugs, if they veer off the beaten path, their careers probably suffer. I think big money interests control the medical and pharmaceutical industries these days and doctors don't dare suggest bypassing a surgery that would bring in big bucks. Back when I was a kid, doctors had more freedom to treat as they saw fit.